Beauty is as beauty does

When I have taken the Myers Briggs test or other quasi-similar profiling tests to assess my fundamental personality type, to my surprise, I do not have a strong predilection for any”side”. I test both introvert and extrovert, depending on the day. My centrist swing continues: sensing vs intuitive, thinking vs feeling, judging vs perceptive. Long ago in college, it made me worry when I first took the test. I scored strongly as an introvert. I was baffled and walked around checking to see if I had spinach in my teeth. I would never have placed myself in the introvert class.

So periodically I have taken the test again. I test even more strongly as introvert while the other three parameters flip flop. I think my adaptive skills allow me to be one way for myself while the opposite for others. I can be that which is needed. In the movie Gosford Park, Helen Mirren gives the definition of the perfect servant, the BEST servant. It is their uncanny ability to anticipate the needs of others.

After the basic personality profile the questionnaires expand to how they are applied, how they influence life choices and values. More than justice or fairness or logic, the thing that excels far above and beyond all other things is BEAUTY. I value beauty, desire beauty, seek beauty. I do not mean beauty as defined by popular culture. It is not the banality of physical beauty; rather something deeper and more esoteric. Beauty is both tangible. Many of the blogs I follow are for the vision and beauty. There is true pleasure in the experience. And also, it reminds me of the mystery of life, the wonderment and astonishment. To be surprised. To witness folly and whimsy. To feel beauty on a visceral level. This is what matters to me. Beauty is stimulating and provocative.

I stumbled upon a morsel with sfgirlbybay. A quote from Practical Magic, spoken by Stockard Channing, “My darling girl. when are you going to understand that NORMAL is not a virtue. Rather it denotes a lack of courage.” WOW!

So I click on my next Google reader and follow Modish and her posts for the last few days. So many images and pictures. It is like going on vacation or riding a train through a countryside, watching everything go by the window. She adds her on Three Beautiful Things in the spirit of 3BT. Of course, I have to jump to 3BT and more beautiful images and inspirational words. The giving of thanks and the open appreciation of beauty. Truly medicine for my heart.

So today, these are my three beautiful things:

1. my fourteen year old son cleaning up cat barf AND his bedroom without my voicing a single word or non-verbal que. He just did it….because it was necessary and he wanted to.

2. coffee ice cubes in the freezer to add to my leftover coffee from this morning

3. frozen wild blackberries from the freezer eaten like cold candy.

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